In order for litigants to overcome this difficulty, several jurisdictions in the European Union (including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland) have, over the last couple of months announced plans to establish English-speaking courts which would have jurisdiction to hear international commercial disputes.

The common objective behind all those initiatives is clearly to prepare for Brexit by capturing some of the international litigation business currently located in London.

This trend continues as France just recently announced its intention to open an English-speaking chamber within the Paris Court of Appeal. As is the case in the other jurisdictions that have announced similar plans, this chamber will have jurisdiction to hear disputes with a foreign characteristics (for instance in which at least one of the parties is a foreign entity or if foreign law is applicable). Interestingly, it will also have jurisdiction to hear appeals against international arbitral awards and actions regarding the enforcement of international arbitral awards.READ MORE

The Dutch Parliament is expected to shortly follow the same trend when it debates a new court reform bill (the Bill). The Bill aims at establishing an English-speaking court system which will have jurisdiction to hear international commercial disputes.

In anticipation of those debates in the Dutch Parliament, I wanted to provide a brief update and outline the main characteristics of this new court system:READ MORE

Now that 2018 is well underway, I wanted to mark the beginning of the new year by summarizing some key arbitration/international litigation highlights from 2017 and to discuss what 2018 is likely to offer.READ MORE

This is atypical enough to be noted: Franklin Dehousse, a former judge at the EU General Court (the lowest of the two courts housed at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)), recently filed, before his former court, a legal action against the CJEU on the grounds of mismanagement.READ MORE